Posted on March 14, 2010 - by Ashley Jackson

Kenpo at Suppertime

I’ve decided to totally play it cool and act like I haven’t not updated since last week…

It wasn’t a fantastic week. I ran for the first half of the week on about two hours of sleep a night, finally crashed Wednesday afternoon, still couldn’t get enough sleep to catch up by Thursday morning, and was quite frankly elated when Friday afternoon rolled around and I leave work and sleep sleep sleep. I’m all caught up now and ready to try this week minus the sleeplessness…

I did manage to get some exercise in this week, though. No running–I’m taking a little break from that for a while. Might start up again this week. I’ve been a little unnerved by the recent attacks/murders of joggers in California, complete with very freaky dreams…like last night, when I dreamed some serial killer was breaking into women’s houses and stabbing them, and I woke up suddenly at 4AM feeling like if I went outside or even got out of bed something very, very bad was going to happen…I’ve been looking at sundry items of varying lethality to take with me when I jog or even just take the dog out at night. You can never be too paranoid…

I’ve gotten some walks in during lunch at work, and I started doing the P90X program at my brother’s suggestion. I did Chest and Back on Monday, half of Plyo on Tuesday (’cause halfway through I was like, whoa, this is hard and I’m going to fall down if I do this anymore), did Arms and Shoulders on Wednesday, skipped Thursday, skipped Friday, did Legs and Back on Saturday, and did Kenpo tonight. (Pretty much right after dinner. Dumb Ideas for $1000, Alex…) So basically, I shifted my rest day to the middle of the week and skipped yoga. But I was so busy at work this week that I burned off crazy calories on Thursday and Friday running around, so it’s all good. Will try to stick to the schedule a little better this week.

Oh, yeah, my Thursday weigh in? Down to 149.6 lbs. I’m under 150 lbs! Whoo-hoo! I’m hoping it sticks, and I can definitely see a change. I’ve lost 15 lbs since I decided to change how I lived my life early last year. Slow and steady, baby…I reclaimed a pair of jeans from the top shelf of my closet, too! Boo-yaa…

Ok, you want to see some food? Here’s some food.

I think this was dinner on Thursday night. Two chicken thighs covered (covered, seriously) in Galena Street rub and grilled on the George Foreman with some asparagus, and some onions that may or may not have been cooked in a crazy amount of butter. Don’t judge, I’m from the south!

Friday afternoon I had intentions of walking over to Baja Burrito for some nachos. Mmm, tasty. On the way there, though, I got this odd feeling that their credit card machine was going to be el broken. And then I got there and it was. You see why my dream that night freaked me out? Yeah. You have a premonition about broken credit card machines at a taqueria, Lord knows what else you might be right about…anyway, I’d also been craving some Burger King, and had even gone so far as to check out what was wheat-free on their menu before I left for lunch, so I just walked over there and got myself a Whopper Jr. with Cheese (I took off the bun and pickles) and a side salad with ranch. Ta-da. Whoppers still taste nommy even without the bun!

Oh, I also made a major breakthrough on Friday. I put my Girl Scout Cookies into my communal cookie jar–the jar from which I do not eat. I realized that they were just going to go bad sitting in my cabinet (they were open) and decided to take that old advice to let something go if you love it to heart. My co-workers were happy at the presence of Lemonades in my cookie jar.

Friday night was allll about the spinach artichoke dip.

I don’t even know how I got to the recipe for this, but I saw it and thought I must have this. So I stopped at Harris Teeter on the way home and acquired the ingredients (plus a little carton of Ben & Jerry’s Mint Chocolate Chunk, which mysteriously vanished over the weekend…hmm). Delicious delicious delicious. And easy to  make! And while I do enjoy not feeling horribly dehydrated all evening from the salt in regular tortilla chips, I gotta say, these non-salted ones…they need salt. Just a little bit. I’ll probably go for another brand next time.

Saturday morning breakfast…tasty gluten-free muffin!

I was at Whole Foods today and I almost got the gluten-free cinnamon sugar donuts, but I’m trying to keep my food spending low this week, so I resisted. (The reason I was there was to buy 16 containers of Liberte yogurt before the price went back up. See, savin’ money.)

In the category of dinnerfoods, we have a strip steak, grilled with Chicago seasoning, and some grilled asparagus, and some salted tomatoes, ’cause that’s how we roll in the south.

Man, I can’t wait for summer and fresh off the vine tomatoes, still warm from the sun…mmmmm-mmm….

This morning I went to the farmers market because there was a spring craft fair! I kind of just walked up and down the warehouse and only went into one or two booths, because while the items were interesting, they weren’t really for me. Hand-carved wooden trucks? Dude, if I had a kid, I’d totally buy one from you…but I don’t. Sorry. Check me in a few years.

I ended up going to the market shoppes and getting some more all natural laundry detergent (“washing powders!”) from Anders Soap Company and a package of bratwurst from, I believe, Rainbow Farm…? I don’t know. My normal farm stand is out of sausage until Wednesday, so I had to improvise!

I threw a brat on the grill and then made eggs with bacon bits, tomatoes, peppers, and onions in them. And lots of dill and pepper. And possibly some blood, because I sliced my finger open cutting the tomato. Extra iron, says I…

So yummy-looking in the sunlight! I liked the other farm’s bratwurst better, but this stuff was still good, and still a class above what you can get at the store. I should buy some Italian sausage from the market and make more of that tasty sausage, lentil, and spinach soup…!

Dinner was funny-looking.

And not that good. That’s not egg salad, that’s curry. I made it with straight Greek yogurt and it separated and it just didn’t taste like it should have. Now, this may be because I was using my new sweet curry seasoning from Penzeys and it just tasted different, but there was some different texture-weirdness going on. Now I know why you put mayonnaise in it. Oh well. Try, try again…

And now I have to go to bed. Goodnight, all, and I’ll try to be better about updating this week…